UN says record 155 countries to sign climate agreement

[rooster59]

UN says record 155 countries to sign climate agreement

EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press


UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A record 155 countries will sign the landmark agreement to tackle climate change at a ceremony at U.N. headquarters on April 22, the United Nations said Friday.

U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said that five countries — Barbados, Belize, Tuvalu, Maldives and Samoa — will not only sign the agreement reached in Paris in December but deliver their ratification.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, French President Francois Hollande and French Environment Minister Segolene Royal, who is in charge of global climate negotiations, have invited leaders from all 193 U.N. member states to the event. The U.N. says more than 60 heads of state and government plan to attend.

The current record of 119 signatures on the opening day for signing an international agreement is held by the Law of the Sea treaty in 1994.

The Paris agreement will take effect 30 days after at least 55 countries, accounting for 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, deposit their instruments of ratification or acceptance with the secretary-general.

The list of countries planning to sign the Paris agreement includes the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming: China, United States, Japan, India, Brazil, Australia and many European Union countries including Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy and Spain.

The agreement sets a collective goal of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial times, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). It requires all countries to submit plans for climate action and to update them every five years, though such plans are not legally binding.

Secretary-General Ban has stressed that the signing ceremony is just a first step in accelerating efforts to tackle climate change.

-- (c) Associated Press 2016-04-16

[shirtless]

This will be another costs with no benefit , well done you PC dicks.

[canuckamuck]

Not true, just no benefits for those outside of the climate industry.

[i claudius]

And only countrys like Britain will stick to the rules ,most of the others won't

[klauskunkel]

UN says record 155 countries to sign climate agreement

Well, that's one for the Guinness Book, then..., along with the biggest dough nut the world has ever seen.

Edited April 16, 2016 by klauskunkel

[bassman]

What a screw story for the developed nations. China will not hit peek co2 until 2040 and India will not agree to anything until they reach total electrification sometime in the next two decades.

Meanwhile factories in the west will have to buy "carbon quotas" and use more renewables at a cost that will make their operations in the USA and Europe not profitable. So what does that mean in a nutshell? More globalization will continue where all things are manufactured in the dirty countries.

This agreement will do little for the environment as it will just relocate manufacturing and take jobs from the middle classes in the west.

Disgusting agreement, hopefully next US president will tell them to pack sand.

[Doc46]

What a load of shit,,,, It is an Ice Age Climate Change,,,,,Temperature goes Up for some thousands of years ,,,Then it changes again and Temperature goes Down for a few thousand years ,,,,For sure that's not rocket science hey,,,,,No shit Sherlock,,,

[freedom4life]

Another scam...

[boomerangutang]

It may not achieve haughty goals, but at the least it will lessen fossil fuel and coal use, thereby lessening pollution. To get so many countries to agree on anything for the betterment of the globe is admirable. That so many posters on T.Visa see it as bad - is testament to cynicism. Perhaps they'd rather see business as usual going on ad nauseum: destroying forests, polluting, overfishing seas, continuing fossil fuel and coal burning to generate endless amounts of smog and electricity, continue with gas-guzzling vehicles until city dwellers ww will be wearing dust masks (which only help psychologically), not just residents of some Asian cities.

[Andaman Al]

It may not achieve haughty goals, but at the least it will lessen fossil fuel and coal use, thereby lessening pollution. To get so many countries to agree on anything for the betterment of the globe is admirable. That so many posters on T.Visa see it as bad - is testament to cynicism. Perhaps they'd rather see business as usual going on ad nauseum: destroying forests, polluting, overfishing seas, continuing fossil fuel and coal burning to generate endless amounts of smog and electricity, continue with gas-guzzling vehicles until city dwellers ww will be wearing dust masks (which only help psychologically), not just residents of some Asian cities.

The problem being of course that developing nations cannot have access to the fossil fuel powered energy stations they need. It has been suggested that in Africa that residents can use solar panels on the roofs of their huts. Solar panels that would cost about 3 years salary. Are the locals going to buy them for power? nope! So they will never develop. What happens next is the clever bit. The US or UK or any developed nation can purchase the carbon credits that the African nations do not use (because they no longer can, and their Governments will welcome the money). Then the US/UK or whoever can use those carbon credits to essentially 'deduct' from their carbon usage. Therefore they will just continue to produce as normal and the deductions they make will be on paper, as credits, purchased from those countries with no chance of using them. The net result is..........nothing changes. Al Gores companies set up to control carbon credits will continue to make billions and the issue of climate change will be as it always has been in the lap of the God's as it is nothing to do with humans.

[arjunadawn]

Of course people sign up for it. Its the same thing as signing up for an Obamaphone, food-stamps, free broadband, free healthcare, free this, free that. Its easy to get people to sign up for something predicated on altruism, when inherent in the charity of heart is receiving other people's stuff. People can then self-delude, rationalize, feel positive, and take other people's money.

There is no man-made climate change. I find this issue to be the most staggering intellectual observation of my life- that so many people could be so f --ing stupid! Climate Change is an ideology, not a phenomena that is new to the world. Climate Change is primarily the result of the interplay of solar, lunar, and planetary interactions; with secondary solar and galactic influences. This simple statement is the entire premise of the majority of humans who have ever lived on earth. Billions have been aware of this dynamic for many thousands of years. Now, stalking as fear, science capitulates to ideology like sycophants chasing after research money, and packages the arrogant assertion that man controls the climate... its absurd.

Its absurd. It is a lie. Numerous pieces of data are fudged. The model is egregiously worked until the desired outcomes are reached. Climate Change is a supranational infrastructure to bind national identities, economies, and philosophies to a retarded ambition.

[up2u2]

It has been a real struggle for the science on Global Warming and resulting Climate Change and extreme weather events to break through Political inaction and misinformation. Limiting Global Temperature increase to +2⁰c is going to bring significant political and economic challenges to manage. So it is no 'get out of jail free' scenario.

Global Warming / Climate Change issue has really shown the weakness and corruption of Western Governments by powerful Fossil Fuel polluters and their ability to paralyse Governments from acting. What fascinated me the most was the ability of Fossil Fuel polluters to so easily destabilise and confuse the public debate on the science of Global Warming / Climate Change. It really was just a handful of Deniers funded by Corporations that profit from Fossil Fuel pollution that managed to derail and disseminate misinformation.

Good to see those days coming to an end.

[boomerangutang]

It may not achieve haughty goals, but at the least it will lessen fossil fuel and coal use, thereby lessening pollution. To get so many countries to agree on anything for the betterment of the globe is admirable. That so many posters on T.Visa see it as bad - is testament to cynicism. Perhaps they'd rather see business as usual going on ad nauseum: destroying forests, polluting, overfishing seas, continuing fossil fuel and coal burning to generate endless amounts of smog and electricity, continue with gas-guzzling vehicles until city dwellers ww will be wearing dust masks (which only help psychologically), not just residents of some Asian cities.

The problem being of course that developing nations cannot have access to the fossil fuel powered energy stations they need. It has been suggested that in Africa that residents can use solar panels on the roofs of their huts. Solar panels that would cost about 3 years salary. Are the locals going to buy them for power? nope! So they will never develop. What happens next is the clever bit. The US or UK or any developed nation can purchase the carbon credits that the African nations do not use (because they no longer can, and their Governments will welcome the money). Then the US/UK or whoever can use those carbon credits to essentially 'deduct' from their carbon usage. Therefore they will just continue to produce as normal and the deductions they make will be on paper, as credits, purchased from those countries with no chance of using them. The net result is..........nothing changes. Al Gores companies set up to control carbon credits will continue to make billions and the issue of climate change will be as it always has been in the lap of the God's as it is nothing to do with humans.

It's easy to find the drawbacks in a sweeping international plan. The climate agreement is, among other things, a glob of proposals for trying to lessen the insanity that's gripped the world for past decades, led by insatiably greedy people who run big businesses. Look at business as usual: Fossil fuel companies (suppliers and burners) making tens of billions/year in profit and wanting to increase their revenue by 10% annually. They give lip service to clean energy, but it's like the owner of a dog kennel telling neighbors he doesn't want to allow too much barking day and night, but still breeds many dogs.

The agreement isn't perfect, but it represents steps in the right direction. Any one of us posting herein can submit suggestions for improvements to appropriate places. Granted, suggestions may fall on deaf ears. But again, look at the status quo: Human populations skyrocketing, smog covering every city, half of world cities located at between sea level and 2 meters above (like Bkk), rising seas, shrinking Arctic, rising average surface temps, receding glaciers, thawing permafrost with rapid increase in methane, increased desertification, increased migrations, less potable water, ....the list goes on and on.

Solar PV is not a viable fix in many places. Passive solar is better. Concentrated solar is also better than PV. Methane is viable, particularly for small-scale, like villages. Thermal is already working in Iceland and Japan, and could be useful in other places, including parts of Thailand. River, tide and wave power generators are viable in some places. Smarter housing/building construction would help a lot. Better irrigation methods would also be smart. mulching, composting would also help conserve water and get better crop yields, as would smarter choice of crops. Example for Thailand: rice is a water-guzzling low-nutrition crop. It would be smart to replace it with hemp which is better in every way.

How many designs are there for contraptions which clean/filter air in cities on large scale using little or no energy? Answer: nearly none. I have two designs but no funds to build prototypes (funding would be cheap, but am low-income). The 2 Koch Brothers personally bring in $13 million/day from their fossil fuel biz, while polluting air and water all around their plants. What are they doing to try and clean up the environment? They spend lots of money to get Republicans elected - in order to continue to shield their businesses from environmental scrutiny.

[RickBradford]

It's easy to find the drawbacks in a sweeping international plan.

How true.

Even if a serious global climate agreement were to somehow materialise, it would be a total farce like all the other global agreements to stop war, eradicate hunger, poverty and heal the sick have all been. Only this one hasn’t even got some lofty ambition of easing the suffering of humanity. This one is to control the world's temperature. I mean, seriously, even if the science was correct, it’s a giant joke.

In short, a global agreement is completely futile and only the domain of either power-hungry meddlers or starry-eyed dreamers, the worst kind of pairing possible.

[boomerangutang]

It's easy to find the drawbacks in a sweeping international plan.

How true.

Even if a serious global climate agreement were to somehow materialise, it would be a total farce like all the other global agreements to stop war, eradicate hunger, poverty and heal the sick have all been. Only this one hasn’t even got some lofty ambition of easing the suffering of humanity. This one is to control the world's temperature. I mean, seriously, even if the science was correct, it’s a giant joke.

In short, a global agreement is completely futile and only the domain of either power-hungry meddlers or starry-eyed dreamers, the worst kind of pairing possible.

I guess I'm a "....starry eyed dreamer." Some people would rather have dreamers putting forth plans (which would hopefully make the world a less trashed place), than continue with the status quo: billionaires who are so fixated on amassing fortunes via fossil fuel-related businesses, that everything regarding environmental husbandry are concerns for wimps and 'starry-eyed dreamers.'

As a comparison: The small group who won the Nobel Prize for enacting policies to lessen land mines: Surely, when they started out, establishment-minded folks would have told them, "give me a break. You think you can lessen number of land mines throughout the world? Come on, there's no way anything you can say or do will have any affect."

Same for the people who started the efforts to eradicate polio or smallpox.

[boomerangutang]

I mean, seriously, even if the science was correct, it’s a giant joke.

So, you're saying even if well over 90% of scientists are right in their assessments, the whole climate agreement is a joke?

If nearly all scientists are on the same track, then the following will very likely happen:

>>>> deserts will increase dramatically in size

>>>> sea levels will rise dramatically, flooding many large cities

>>>> people migrations we hear about today, will pale in comparison to migrations in coming decades

>>>> farming will change dramatically: crops won't be able to be grown where they traditionally grow.

>>>> extreme weather will become more common.

>>>> potable water will become increasing rare. Salt will pollute many aquifers.

So, you're saying if those things happen within coming decades, it's all a big joke? Obviously, you're not directly affected by such things, but many people are and more will be in the future.

Deniers are like people show say, "why have a fire department? Look at the sky, do you see smoke from a fire? No. Did we have a fire last week? No. So why spend money outfitting a fire department, when there won't be fires?!"

[Throatwobbler]

I love how all the qualified climatologists here on talking so much sense on a subject that they have obviously studied hard.

Reminds me of the US politician who took a snowball into congress to prove that because it had snowed the world could not be getting hotter.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Throatwobbler

[RickBradford]

So, you're saying even if well over 90% of scientists are right in their assessments, the whole climate agreement is a joke?

If you are someone, scientist or not, who believes that curbing CO2 emissions is crucial to safeguarding the planet against climate catastrophe, then the agreement is a disaster, not a joke. As has been pointed out upthread, and is easily verifiable from official sources, the climate agreement gives free rein to China and India to more than double their CO2 emissions by 2030.

Even the IPCC sees CO2 emissions worldwide being 40-50% higher in 2030 than they are now, so, if you are one of the starry-eyed dreamers, it's time to check out real estate in Oymyakon.

The rest of us, the realists, see the agreement as a joke; the standard type of virtue signalling engaged in by the Green/Left, politicians and the legacy media.

[Andaman Al]

It may not achieve haughty goals, but at the least it will lessen fossil fuel and coal use, thereby lessening pollution. To get so many countries to agree on anything for the betterment of the globe is admirable. That so many posters on T.Visa see it as bad - is testament to cynicism. Perhaps they'd rather see business as usual going on ad nauseum: destroying forests, polluting, overfishing seas, continuing fossil fuel and coal burning to generate endless amounts of smog and electricity, continue with gas-guzzling vehicles until city dwellers ww will be wearing dust masks (which only help psychologically), not just residents of some Asian cities.

The problem being of course that developing nations cannot have access to the fossil fuel powered energy stations they need. It has been suggested that in Africa that residents can use solar panels on the roofs of their huts. Solar panels that would cost about 3 years salary. Are the locals going to buy them for power? nope! So they will never develop. What happens next is the clever bit. The US or UK or any developed nation can purchase the carbon credits that the African nations do not use (because they no longer can, and their Governments will welcome the money). Then the US/UK or whoever can use those carbon credits to essentially 'deduct' from their carbon usage. Therefore they will just continue to produce as normal and the deductions they make will be on paper, as credits, purchased from those countries with no chance of using them. The net result is..........nothing changes. Al Gores companies set up to control carbon credits will continue to make billions and the issue of climate change will be as it always has been in the lap of the God's as it is nothing to do with humans.

It's easy to find the drawbacks in a sweeping international plan. The climate agreement is, among other things, a glob of proposals for trying to lessen the insanity that's gripped the world for past decades, led by insatiably greedy people who run big businesses. Look at business as usual: Fossil fuel companies (suppliers and burners) making tens of billions/year in profit and wanting to increase their revenue by 10% annually. They give lip service to clean energy, but it's like the owner of a dog kennel telling neighbors he doesn't want to allow too much barking day and night, but still breeds many dogs.

The agreement isn't perfect, but it represents steps in the right direction. Any one of us posting herein can submit suggestions for improvements to appropriate places. Granted, suggestions may fall on deaf ears. But again, look at the status quo: Human populations skyrocketing, smog covering every city, half of world cities located at between sea level and 2 meters above (like Bkk), rising seas, shrinking Arctic, rising average surface temps, receding glaciers, thawing permafrost with rapid increase in methane, increased desertification, increased migrations, less potable water, ....the list goes on and on.

Solar PV is not a viable fix in many places. Passive solar is better. Concentrated solar is also better than PV. Methane is viable, particularly for small-scale, like villages. Thermal is already working in Iceland and Japan, and could be useful in other places, including parts of Thailand. River, tide and wave power generators are viable in some places. Smarter housing/building construction would help a lot. Better irrigation methods would also be smart. mulching, composting would also help conserve water and get better crop yields, as would smarter choice of crops. Example for Thailand: rice is a water-guzzling low-nutrition crop. It would be smart to replace it with hemp which is better in every way.

How many designs are there for contraptions which clean/filter air in cities on large scale using little or no energy? Answer: nearly none. I have two designs but no funds to build prototypes (funding would be cheap, but am low-income). The 2 Koch Brothers personally bring in $13 million/day from their fossil fuel biz, while polluting air and water all around their plants. What are they doing to try and clean up the environment? They spend lots of money to get Republicans elected - in order to continue to shield their businesses from environmental scrutiny.

Please do not get me wrong. We are poisoning our planet, of that I am certain and concerned and wish to see every step taken to stop that. So lets put the billions traded in carbon credits into that NOT into a mythical model of global warming.

If the atmosphere were represented by a gallon of water then the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere in the last 100 years can be represented by a single drop of fluid added to the gallon. There is no such thing as Anthropogenic Global Warming, it is absolute nonsense. Global warming is a result of that very large yellow hot thing in the sky, as it has been for 100's of millions of years.

What I find laughable is that we now fail to see our position on the scale of things in the universe. To suggest as a human goal, we limit planetary heating to +2 deg C is nothing short of something that belongs in the assylum. Think about it! It is like saying we are going to lower tide levels or minimise the number of earthquakes.Maybe once we master geo engineering atmospheres on Mars perhaps we will understand how to affect planetary temperatures, but I can only assume that 155 countries sent their village idiots to the conference that agreed such absurd goals. Literally the future of the planet is placed in the hands of retards. Not sure what else to say. Lets stop poisoning the earth and the water table and also of course the oceans, but controlling (or affecting) planetary temperatures is absurd.

[arjunadawn]

Some people earnestly look out at the world, see changes, and reach the (at first glance) conclusion that man is doing "this." After all, we/man is F---ng up so much of everything else it does seem a logical extension that climate change is a consequence of our crapping on the globe. It is also easy to conflate the terrible pollution we are creating with changing climates. Also, few people have ever had to develop context for a frame of reference that considers time on a galactic scale, epochs. They look at the narrow vignette of their life and conclude "Yep, there are changes."

Few have the time or inclination to fully explore the RICO like evolution of "climate change" research since the 70s and how its "the sky is falling" perspective is as actually a currency for the profession, like precious metals or fiat tender, and actually perpetuates a 'climate change machine' that must find foreboding in order to survive; research, credibility, tenure, everything- is predicated on supporting "approved thought." Were "climate change" scientists to actually achieve their goal or find conflicting data, they are out of a job, and a legacy. This horrible conflict of interest was manipulated by the left in the left 70s and impregnated with politics and agenda. Its quite hard for the true believer to dissect truth from Machiavelli.

However, there are those who know well the politics behind "climate change" and willfully embrace this stalking-horse because the goals resonate with their own- redistribution, universal national equality/relativity, reparations from the West, subordination to a global legislature, control of the oceans, etc., and so they trumpet climate change irrespective of "climate change" apologists ever accomplishing anything. They just do not care because they disingenuously know climate change is the means not the end.

A certain fact is each incremental step of "climate change" movement consolidates regional and supranational laws/regulations/economics while actually doing nothing to act upon the imagined problem, the raison d'etre. Each failure is packaged as a step forward, progress, but its poppycock. Climate Change is a stalking horse for those who wish to achieve political ambitions without consent of the governed.

Others see the whole spectacle for what it is, a farce. Regrettably, its quite simple:

[boomerangutang]

It may not achieve haughty goals, but at the least it will lessen fossil fuel and coal use, thereby lessening pollution. To get so many countries to agree on anything for the betterment of the globe is admirable. That so many posters on T.Visa see it as bad - is testament to cynicism. Perhaps they'd rather see business as usual going on ad nauseum: destroying forests, polluting, overfishing seas, continuing fossil fuel and coal burning to generate endless amounts of smog and electricity, continue with gas-guzzling vehicles until city dwellers ww will be wearing dust masks (which only help psychologically), not just residents of some Asian cities.

The problem being of course that developing nations cannot have access to the fossil fuel powered energy stations they need. It has been suggested that in Africa that residents can use solar panels on the roofs of their huts. Solar panels that would cost about 3 years salary. Are the locals going to buy them for power? nope! So they will never develop. What happens next is the clever bit. The US or UK or any developed nation can purchase the carbon credits that the African nations do not use (because they no longer can, and their Governments will welcome the money). Then the US/UK or whoever can use those carbon credits to essentially 'deduct' from their carbon usage. Therefore they will just continue to produce as normal and the deductions they make will be on paper, as credits, purchased from those countries with no chance of using them. The net result is..........nothing changes. Al Gores companies set up to control carbon credits will continue to make billions and the issue of climate change will be as it always has been in the lap of the God's as it is nothing to do with humans.

It's easy to find the drawbacks in a sweeping international plan. The climate agreement is, among other things, a glob of proposals for trying to lessen the insanity that's gripped the world for past decades, led by insatiably greedy people who run big businesses. Look at business as usual: Fossil fuel companies (suppliers and burners) making tens of billions/year in profit and wanting to increase their revenue by 10% annually. They give lip service to clean energy, but it's like the owner of a dog kennel telling neighbors he doesn't want to allow too much barking day and night, but still breeds many dogs.

The agreement isn't perfect, but it represents steps in the right direction. Any one of us posting herein can submit suggestions for improvements to appropriate places. Granted, suggestions may fall on deaf ears. But again, look at the status quo: Human populations skyrocketing, smog covering every city, half of world cities located at between sea level and 2 meters above (like Bkk), rising seas, shrinking Arctic, rising average surface temps, receding glaciers, thawing permafrost with rapid increase in methane, increased desertification, increased migrations, less potable water, ....the list goes on and on.

Solar PV is not a viable fix in many places. Passive solar is better. Concentrated solar is also better than PV. Methane is viable, particularly for small-scale, like villages. Thermal is already working in Iceland and Japan, and could be useful in other places, including parts of Thailand. River, tide and wave power generators are viable in some places. Smarter housing/building construction would help a lot. Better irrigation methods would also be smart. mulching, composting would also help conserve water and get better crop yields, as would smarter choice of crops. Example for Thailand: rice is a water-guzzling low-nutrition crop. It would be smart to replace it with hemp which is better in every way.

How many designs are there for contraptions which clean/filter air in cities on large scale using little or no energy? Answer: nearly none. I have two designs but no funds to build prototypes (funding would be cheap, but am low-income). The 2 Koch Brothers personally bring in $13 million/day from their fossil fuel biz, while polluting air and water all around their plants. What are they doing to try and clean up the environment? They spend lots of money to get Republicans elected - in order to continue to shield their businesses from environmental scrutiny.

Please do not get me wrong. We are poisoning our planet, of that I am certain and concerned and wish to see every step taken to stop that. So lets put the billions traded in carbon credits into that NOT into a mythical model of global warming.

If the atmosphere were represented by a gallon of water then the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere in the last 100 years can be represented by a single drop of fluid added to the gallon. There is no such thing as Anthropogenic Global Warming, it is absolute nonsense. Global warming is a result of that very large yellow hot thing in the sky, as it has been for 100's of millions of years.

What I find laughable is that we now fail to see our position on the scale of things in the universe. To suggest as a human goal, we limit planetary heating to +2 deg C is nothing short of something that belongs in the assylum. Think about it! It is like saying we are going to lower tide levels or minimise the number of earthquakes.Maybe once we master geo engineering atmospheres on Mars perhaps we will understand how to affect planetary temperatures, but I can only assume that 155 countries sent their village idiots to the conference that agreed such absurd goals. Literally the future of the planet is placed in the hands of retards. Not sure what else to say. Lets stop poisoning the earth and the water table and also of course the oceans, but controlling (or affecting) planetary temperatures is absurd.

This topic is not about mankind's scale compared to the universe. It's about our relation to this one planet. Earth is a tiny speck compared to the universe. We don't have to agree, but I believe strongly that actions of man, particularly burning fossil fuels (equivalent of 1 ton/yr per person), affect the planet. No one is saying it affects earthquakes. That's silly and diversionary. However, speaking of tides, GW obviously won't affect the affects of the moon, but high tides will be higher, if sea levels rise, as they're already doing.

7 billion tons per year of released carbon that would ordinarily be locked up underground in fossil fuels. 7 billion tons is significant, even in a 1 mile thick atmosphere of a little planet. Look at pics from space of major cities. Most have a thick yellowish/gray haze covering. That's smog and smoke, and it's man-made.

Coal plants in the US and China are closing down as we speak. Do deniers want those plants to stay open, and new ones to open up? It's doubtful you'd want a new coal plant next door to where you live.

[boomerangutang]

So, you're saying even if well over 90% of scientists are right in their assessments, the whole climate agreement is a joke?

If you are someone, scientist or not, who believes that curbing CO2 emissions is crucial to safeguarding the planet against climate catastrophe, then the agreement is a disaster, not a joke. As has been pointed out upthread, and is easily verifiable from official sources, the climate agreement gives free rein to China and India to more than double their CO2 emissions by 2030.

Even the IPCC sees CO2 emissions worldwide being 40-50% higher in 2030 than they are now, so, if you are one of the starry-eyed dreamers, it's time to check out real estate in Oymyakon.

The rest of us, the realists, see the agreement as a joke; the standard type of virtue signalling engaged in by the Green/Left, politicians and the legacy media.

I agree that China and India (and some others like Nigeria and Indonesia) got off relatively easy. After days of intense negotiations, it was a matter of letting them get easy terms, or having no agreement at all, which included those countries. Something is better than nothing. Again, look at the status quo: with power-that-be polluting 'til the cows come home. Unmitigated polluting may be fine with posters on this thread (all of whom are well-off and living comfortably in air-conditioned habitats) ....but it's not going to bode well for the 50% of people on the planet who will be affected by increased desertification and/or flooding of coastal regions - most of whom make less than $2/day and can't afford to pick up and move to a better place. I'm actually in favor of lessening human populations (for the well-being of the planet and all its species), so in a seemingly-callous way, I can accept large numbers of our species dying. It's like cutting off a gangrene-infected arm in order to save the body.

[Throatwobbler]

It may not achieve haughty goals, but at the least it will lessen fossil fuel and coal use, thereby lessening pollution. To get so many countries to agree on anything for the betterment of the globe is admirable. That so many posters on T.Visa see it as bad - is testament to cynicism. Perhaps they'd rather see business as usual going on ad nauseum: destroying forests, polluting, overfishing seas, continuing fossil fuel and coal burning to generate endless amounts of smog and electricity, continue with gas-guzzling vehicles until city dwellers ww will be wearing dust masks (which only help psychologically), not just residents of some Asian cities.

The problem being of course that developing nations cannot have access to the fossil fuel powered energy stations they need. It has been suggested that in Africa that residents can use solar panels on the roofs of their huts. Solar panels that would cost about 3 years salary. Are the locals going to buy them for power? nope! So they will never develop. What happens next is the clever bit. The US or UK or any developed nation can purchase the carbon credits that the African nations do not use (because they no longer can, and their Governments will welcome the money). Then the US/UK or whoever can use those carbon credits to essentially 'deduct' from their carbon usage. Therefore they will just continue to produce as normal and the deductions they make will be on paper, as credits, purchased from those countries with no chance of using them. The net result is..........nothing changes. Al Gores companies set up to control carbon credits will continue to make billions and the issue of climate change will be as it always has been in the lap of the God's as it is nothing to do with humans.

It's easy to find the drawbacks in a sweeping international plan. The climate agreement is, among other things, a glob of proposals for trying to lessen the insanity that's gripped the world for past decades, led by insatiably greedy people who run big businesses. Look at business as usual: Fossil fuel companies (suppliers and burners) making tens of billions/year in profit and wanting to increase their revenue by 10% annually. They give lip service to clean energy, but it's like the owner of a dog kennel telling neighbors he doesn't want to allow too much barking day and night, but still breeds many dogs.

The agreement isn't perfect, but it represents steps in the right direction. Any one of us posting herein can submit suggestions for improvements to appropriate places. Granted, suggestions may fall on deaf ears. But again, look at the status quo: Human populations skyrocketing, smog covering every city, half of world cities located at between sea level and 2 meters above (like Bkk), rising seas, shrinking Arctic, rising average surface temps, receding glaciers, thawing permafrost with rapid increase in methane, increased desertification, increased migrations, less potable water, ....the list goes on and on.

Solar PV is not a viable fix in many places. Passive solar is better. Concentrated solar is also better than PV. Methane is viable, particularly for small-scale, like villages. Thermal is already working in Iceland and Japan, and could be useful in other places, including parts of Thailand. River, tide and wave power generators are viable in some places. Smarter housing/building construction would help a lot. Better irrigation methods would also be smart. mulching, composting would also help conserve water and get better crop yields, as would smarter choice of crops. Example for Thailand: rice is a water-guzzling low-nutrition crop. It would be smart to replace it with hemp which is better in every way.

How many designs are there for contraptions which clean/filter air in cities on large scale using little or no energy? Answer: nearly none. I have two designs but no funds to build prototypes (funding would be cheap, but am low-income). The 2 Koch Brothers personally bring in $13 million/day from their fossil fuel biz, while polluting air and water all around their plants. What are they doing to try and clean up the environment? They spend lots of money to get Republicans elected - in order to continue to shield their businesses from environmental scrutiny.

Please do not get me wrong. We are poisoning our planet, of that I am certain and concerned and wish to see every step taken to stop that. So lets put the billions traded in carbon credits into that NOT into a mythical model of global warming.

If the atmosphere were represented by a gallon of water then the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere in the last 100 years can be represented by a single drop of fluid added to the gallon. There is no such thing as Anthropogenic Global Warming, it is absolute nonsense. Global warming is a result of that very large yellow hot thing in the sky, as it has been for 100's of millions of years.

What I find laughable is that we now fail to see our position on the scale of things in the universe. To suggest as a human goal, we limit planetary heating to +2 deg C is nothing short of something that belongs in the assylum. Think about it! It is like saying we are going to lower tide levels or minimise the number of earthquakes.Maybe once we master geo engineering atmospheres on Mars perhaps we will understand how to affect planetary temperatures, but I can only assume that 155 countries sent their village idiots to the conference that agreed such absurd goals. Literally the future of the planet is placed in the hands of retards. Not sure what else to say. Lets stop poisoning the earth and the water table and also of course the oceans, but controlling (or affecting) planetary temperatures is absurd.

I think you and other posters on this thread are suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which relatively unskilled persons suffer illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than it really is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their own ineptitude and evaluate their own ability accurately.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Myself I am not skilled in climate science so will listen to the people who know what they are talking about. 97% of climate scientist agree with man made climate change.

[RickBradford]

Myself I am not skilled in climate science so will listen to the people who know what they are talking about. 97% of climate scientist agree with man made climate change.

Unfortunately, the assertion that 97% of climate scientists agree with man-made climate change was itself made by people who don't know what they're talking about, as has been repeatedly demonstrated.

[up2u2]

Myself I am not skilled in climate science so will listen to the people who know what they are talking about. 97% of climate scientist agree with man made climate change.

97% Scientific consensus on GW / CC was superseded by a study in 2015 that found a scientific consensus of 99.94% that GW is occurring and it is definitively linked to man's burning of Fossil Fuels. If you rely on the science of Global Warming and Climate Change you are on very solid ground backed by the evidence.

[up2u2]

A Carbon tax is revenue neutral. Governments do not make any net revenue from putting a levy on Carbon. It is just a 'price signal'. The issue is GLOBAL Warming. Note the word 'GLOBAL'. Hence it needs a GLOBAL response. Pretty easy to understand. That is why 155 countries signing an agreement is significant.

[RickBradford]

97% Scientific consensus on GW / CC was superseded by a study in 2015 that found a scientific consensus of 99.94% that GW is occurring and it is definitively linked to man's burning of Fossil Fuels.

And this is what the Warmists, with their lack of numerical skills, will never comprehend.

We would expect a very high agreement on matters of great simplicity, such as that an apple thrown into the air will fall back to earth. More complex and nuanced issues, such as whether some sub-atomic particles can travel faster than light, deliver lower certainty.

When you take an massively complex, chaotic and multi-disciplinary topic such as climate change, and it is announced with a certainty of over 99.9%, you know it's a crock and that there's lame manipulation going on. Even Kim Jong-Eun doesn't get 99.94%, and he's got thugs with batons to help him.

They'll never get it. Not that it matters; the Warmists routinely announce these ludicrous figures only to keep their equally innumerate followers happy. Only idiots need apply. Nobody outside their movement takes the slightest notice of this drooling nonsense.

[Rancid]

Climate change or not, less pollution can't hurt. Wonder if Thailand has to reduce the smoke in Chiang Mai?

Also is this the carbon trading scam Goldman Sachs wanted to set up to scim billions for themselves? If banksters are involved no good will ever come of it.

[pitrevie]

97% Scientific consensus on GW / CC was superseded by a study in 2015 that found a scientific consensus of 99.94% that GW is occurring and it is definitively linked to man's burning of Fossil Fuels.

And this is what the Warmists, with their lack of numerical skills, will never comprehend.

We would expect a very high agreement on matters of great simplicity, such as that an apple thrown into the air will fall back to earth. More complex and nuanced issues, such as whether some sub-atomic particles can travel faster than light, deliver lower certainty.

When you take an massively complex, chaotic and multi-disciplinary topic such as climate change, and it is announced with a certainty of over 99.9%, you know it's a crock and that there's lame manipulation going on. Even Kim Jong-Eun doesn't get 99.94%, and he's got thugs with batons to help him.

They'll never get it. Not that it matters; the Warmists routinely announce these ludicrous figures only to keep their equally innumerate followers happy. Only idiots need apply. Nobody outside their movement takes the slightest notice of this drooling nonsense.

I think you will find that the same consensus applies to the Theory Of Evolution however that doesn't stop one of the major parties in the USA from being totally opposed to it or advocating that we teach the alternative theory as suggested by the former president. The alternative theory being that some guy comes down to earth as his son, gets born of a virgin and gets nailed up on a cross so that he can forgive everyone. This only thousand of years after he almost wiped out the entire human race and that only a short time after he had had a major altercation with the first two humans over an apple and a talking snake. Darwin published his theory over 150 years ago and it is overwhelmingly supported by scientific evidence and the vast majority of scientists.

I think you would have to be a supreme optimist if you think that you could convince the American public to support anything to do with climate change no matter what the evidence and no matter how many scientists supported it.

[RickBradford]

The difference being that neither side in the evolution debate is trying to use a 99.94% certainty rate as justification for spending trillions of dollars of other people's money on idiotic feel-good fantasy projects.

If somebody wants to believe in divine origin, well and good, and I hope they have a fine day for it.

At least they're not trying to triple electricity prices in the western world, or starve those in the third world with idiot schemes suffused with Green virtue signalling.

As Bertrand Russell said: "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."

Edited April 19, 2016 by RickBradford